John Chambers challenges India Inc's thoughts

TNNOct 24, 2005, 12.50AM IST

MUMBAI: It was one of those rare occasions when the keynote speaker never took to the stage, and yet held everyone spellbound by the sheer power of his ideas and his compelling vision of the future. When Cisco president John Chambers speaks, he's known to have that kind of an effect on his audience, and last Thursday the Crystal Room at The Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai, was witness to one such performance at the Corporate Dossier Super Achievers' Forum.

Even if his schedule in India was brutally punishing, the 55-year-old Cisco chief wasn't showing it. He was at his energetic best, walking down the aisle, moving sideways, sometimes locking eyes with an audience member while making a point, and sometimes putting across his idea with a subtle joke, all with the practised ease of a consummate showman. Throughout his 45-minute talk, Mr Chambers kept teasing, cajoling, throwing ideas, and "challenging the thoughts", as he puts it, of the audience comprising the who's who of Corporate India — from Adi Godrej, Marico's Harsh Mariwala, Videocon chief Venugopal Dhoot, to the Meswani brothers, Nikhil and Hital, Asian Paints' Ashwin Dani and Mastek's Ashank Desai.

Mr Chambers began by speaking about India, the opportunities it held, and the new dreams and aspirations of its people. He explained why Cisco was betting big on India and on Indians — for their ability to innovate, manage global organisations, and a supportive government. Mr Chambers emphasised that technology- enabled productivity growth is the way forward. That has great relevance for India since a substantial 4-5% growth must come from productivity gains, and it's technology that can help India achieve this growth. The gathering of some of India's best corporate minds sat riveted to every word of advice that the technology pasha had to proffer. Always known to be passionate about the potential of the internet and its power to change the world, Mr Chambers described how technology could play a big role in increasing business process efficiencies. For that to happen, he said, business processes have to be first re-designed, and then if technology and the internet are layered on top of that, it would lead to a 20-30% savings in cost. Mr Chambers then moved on to one of his favourite subjects — market transitions and their importance to success of a company. And here he borrowed from Cisco's own experiences in spotting important transitions ahead of others. The key to doing that — listen to and learn from customers, and you'll never go wrong.

Crystal gazing into the future, Mr Chambers suggested that productivity gains in the decade of the 21st century will be led by the application of technology to interactions. He said that since the invention of the microprocessor, networking has emerged as the most scaleable platform to deliver productivity growth. And when Mr Chambers speaks about networking, the world listens. As the CEOs networked over cocktails and dinner, everyone was discussing, debating, and praising Mr Chambers' speech, and most admitted it gave them a lot to rethink about how they see their respective businesses. "It was a concentrated dose, and it will take some time to sink in," said Ashwin Dani, CEO, Asian Paints. The takeaway was different for different people, and for some CEOs, like Videocon's Venugopal Dhoot, who are taking their companies global, listening to Mr Chambers was more of an inspiration. "Since the talk was about globalising, and his company had global ambitions, it was a great lesson," said Mr Dhoot.